pathogens and of consistent quality.
However, the issues surrounding the mainte-
nance of high-quality products based on
these organisms can be quite different. Fungi
can be produced in vitro, which avoids the
complications of maintenance of healthy
host cultures, the risks of latent infections in
the host and the inevitable bacterial contami-
nation from saprophytic bacteria that are
associated with in vivoproduction. Viability
can be easily assessed in fungi, but can be
checked in virus preparations only by bioas-
say. Hence, the methodologies for achieving
high-quality products are quite different for
these two types of microorganism.
In countries where registration of micro-
bial control products is not yet enforced, the
biocontrol industry is unregulated and prod-
ucts tend to be of poor quality. Reasons for
not establishing adequate quality control
include increased cost (materials and labour),
lack of information on standard procedures
and the absence of an agreed set of acceptable
standards. In countries where regulatory pro-
cedures are enforced for microbial control
products, registration requires that products
are safe and have been adequately tested
against non-target organisms. Apart from
this, there are no set requirements for quality
assurance and manufacturers are left to
develop their own procedures. This results in
a disparity in the degree to which different
manufacturers control product quality.
Given that poor-quality products can
result in loss of user confidence in microbial
biocontrol products in general, it is long
overdue for a set of standard quality control
guidelines to be produced to protect the
industry as a whole. These quality standards
and methods for their implementation need
to be both realistic and economically appro-
priate. It is therefore essential that they be
drawn up through close collaboration
between manufacturers of biocontrol prod-
ucts, researchers and the appropriate regula-
tory authorities. Only in this way can
regulations be developed that are neither too
onerous for producers nor inappropriate for
the special nature of infectious agents.Acknowledgements
Sections from this chapter have been previ-
ously published as a paper in the journal
Biocontrol Science and Technology; http://
http://www.tandf.co.uk (Jenkins and Grzywacz,
2000).260 N.E. Jenkins and D. Grzywacz
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